


An obscurus is an open wound

by Anatak



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Established Relationship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I did not draft this, M/M, Nightmares, Non-Canon Relationship, Obscurus (Harry Potter), Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 21:13:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11471778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anatak/pseuds/Anatak
Summary: Credence feels toxic and has nightmares???





	An obscurus is an open wound

Credence floated in darkness, the air feathery and heavy against his skin and a chill drifted from his body. He couldn’t see or smell anything but himself, and he lingered on his own skin as smoke does. The scars on his body bled as if they were new and blood dripped audibly against the nothingness. His muscles echoed spasms as if crying. Sobs that had happened years ago left Credence's lungs with painless bruises, but the colour could be felt from inside his ribs. His heart beat rolled through his body with the sound of his mother's breath, the debt of life pulling his body, a weight, a whisper, ownership tightening around his throat, suffocating leash held by another.

Another entered the space, unheard, unseen, but felt, as the air turned to steam that bubbled, floated and burst into a soothingly searing pain. Credence's body grew damp with sweat and he felt someone touch him, thousands of hands pressing against him, pawing and tugging, ripping into him as his body crumbled into nothing. Breaking apart like a sandcastle as hands dug ever deep, panting, pulsing, a hand grabbed his hair, arching his back and muttering ‘monster’ into every strand, words like creatures swimming through the depths. Violated.

He knew the parasite that grew inside of him, the tendrils that writhed just under his skin, the shadows that loomed in the back of his throat, he knew the veins it bred in and every inch of his skin that was more cage than flesh. But this was new. Another had laid their claim on his body now, and they knew him, their hands sparked against his body and a pain ripped through his lower back as if his spine was being split up its center. Credence whimpered out a word that didn’t make a sound but he heard his voice screaming for Percival.

He was pulled into reality as Percival's name was hung in the air, shaking its way through the sheets and leaving dirty hand-prints on the walls, the only place that still remained clean of him, now bore tainted dust as he infiltrated every part of Credence, then and still now. Black feathers of dust fell off his body as if shedding his human form, the obscurus thrashing within. Even here, so far away, such a long time after it all and still there was a part of him that belonged to Percival. Even after his mother and her abuse fell from his mind, the older man held fast, and like an open wound, with him there, Credence had never truly healed. He felt himself unclean. A victim bearing the mark of another, and when Newt’s worried hand fell soft on his shoulder he felt more undeserving than ever. He was unclean. He was tainted. He was a decaying limb that would slowly infect the whole body. And so he pulled out of the others touch. It was greedy of him to even be there and he had just filled the room with the name of another, a name that left his mouth dirty and the room impure. His eyes saw the sin clinging to the paint and settling into the floorboards.

“Credence…” Newt’s breath was soft and familiar, and his hands rested in the back of the boy's shoulders, heavy enough to be comforting, but not so heavy as to make him feel trapped. Credence stilled. Newt always knew how to calm him, he always knew what to say, and Credence felt for a moment that it was because he was an injured animal, just as everything else in the suitcase once was.

“Credence… You are here with me… You are here with me because I want you to be… You are not unclean… You have not been spoiled… He is not here… I am… He has not broken you, he hurt you when you needed him, but you don’t need him anymore Credence…”

As his words fell into the space behind the younger man's neck, something broke, Credence broke. He shuddered and fell into Newt’s lap, sobbing into pale legs strangely littered with freckles, he screamed and felt the obscurus bleeding out, black wisps brushing past his lips and fading into the air. Newt stroked through the younger boys hair as he screamed, calling out in a pain that he knew he could not soothe. He touched the boy’s back and felt the scars of his mother's abuse, long and lifted from the skin, damage inflicted to the already weak body left the scars numb and over sensitive to the touch. He listened to the sobbing shouts that shook the trauma from Credence's bones and wondered if this was helping, he wondered if screaming really helped the boy at all. It was a long time before he stopped screaming, and much longer before the boy stopped crying but when he finally was calm enough and Newt could look upon his face he found tears of black, like the beast within was weeping too and as he pulled the younger man close to his body and held him, he could feel the beast falling to rest, just a little bit smaller than it was before. Maybe the beast fed off of the pain of Percival or maybe the beast too ached with wounds that needed to be purged before they could heal. Either way, Credence needed this and Newt would let him have it.


End file.
